The Jarawas: Language and Culture

The Anthropological Survey of India (An.S.I.) takes immense pride in presenting this book on Jarawa Language and Culture almost within a year of publication of another book on phonology of Jarawa language. The present volume is indeed a giant step for us, a definitive foray into hitherto uncharted terrain.

The author Dr. M. Sreenathan is Research Associate in the An.S.I. His work reflects his expertise in his description of language culture in which, using very few words, he is able to give insight into the Jarawa mind and its working. It is a very interesting and significant observation which the author makes about the interplay of a rich language and the role of silence.

Any and every approach to the Jarawa psyche, I presume, necessitates a perusal of the Chief of Seattle's impassioned plea in 1854 to the then American president Franklin Pierce when he offered to buy a large tract of Red Indian land. Given below are a few excerpts from the Red Indian chief's letter:

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?

The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us: The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man- all belong to the same family.

**Contents and Sample Pages**